


Things in Heaven and Earth

by wrote_and_writ



Category: Tam Lin - Pamela Dean
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 16:34:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16836394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrote_and_writ/pseuds/wrote_and_writ
Summary: “Fuck you, too, Armin,” Nick said, not amiably.“Whenever you like,” said  Robin in the most careless voice he owned. “But it won’t help you a jot.”Tam Lin,Chapter 9Takes place before Nicholas and Janet break up





	Things in Heaven and Earth

The argument continued after they left Janet’s room and through dinner the next day. It was an old argument, but that didn’t make its edges less sharp.

Finally, Nick came to the end of his patience. He dropped his tray on the precarious stack of chipped food service dishes and left the dining hall. He didn’t look back, not even when he felt Janet’s eyes on him. He couldn’t handle her, too. 

Robin, however, followed. Nick was working up to a full fury, so he only distantly heard him warn Molly off and his sincere apologies for leaving her alone. 

“Deal…” The rest of her remark was lost as the glass doors of Ericson clattered shut behind him. 

The brisk evening air cooled his distemper a fraction. He probably wouldn’t bite Robin’s head off when he eventually caught up. Robin wisely kept his distance, pacing to keep Nick in sight, until they reached Nick’s dorm room. 

Nick didn’t bother to close the door. He stood, brooding, grappling with his helpless fury, waiting for Robin. 

The soft click of the lock catching preceded the scent of lavender and mint that imprinted Robin in Nick’s senses. He tensed briefly when Robin touched his arm, then melted into the embrace that awaited him. 

In all this wide world and in the long, long years of his life, Robert Armin was Nicholas’s only anchor. He was the only person left who could truly soothe him, who made him believe there was yet goodness left in the world. Janet, with her hot-blood and poems and red, red hair, Janet of folklore and fancy, a woman conjured to his exact desires, was the next best thing, but Nicholas was so very tired. And he had grown to love Thomas, the boy who was so very like his own youngest brother, now long dead. 

“There must be—”

Robin stopped his words with a kiss. He smoothed down Nick’s wild, wind-blown hair, cupped his face in his cold hands, and kissed him and kissed him and kissed him. Nick grabbed the folds of Robin’s dark gray sweater and held on as if he were a drowning man. Nick kissed him and kissed him and kissed him and pressed his body to Robin’s, seeking answers to questions he never had to ask but still did, after all this time. 

“Janet could save him,” Robin said when Nick finally broke off to catch his breath. “Admit it, there is no one better suited than Janet to our Thomas. I feel like a proud father, or uncle, or something, when I imagine it. She is his only chance, my lad.”

“How can I do it?” Nick said. 

“Do you love her?”

“After a fashion.” He was so very tired. “Can I do this without breaking her heart?”

“No,” Robin replied. “It’s going to wound, but not, I think, mortally. You can’t do it without becoming the villain, I’m afraid. She’s brilliant, our Janet, and she’ll sense a scheme.”

“I don’t want to hurt her.”

“She’ll mend. She really is the best hope Thomas has.”

“How shall I bring about this end?”

“Peg’s very fond of you,” Robin said carefully. “Anne would serve in a pinch, but I suspect Janet would blame her, and we need her to blame you.”

Nick kissed Robin again. He wished, for the thousandth time, that he could take Robin out in the light of day. Perhaps a time would come. Perhaps it would be soon. But it was not this day.

“And then what?”

“And then what?” Robin turned the words back at him. “We go on, as we have always done. As we must.” Robin kissed the tips of Nick’s fingers, each in their turn. He kissed Nick’s palms, the undersides of his wrists. Nick pulled back before Robin could continue his journey. 

“Put on a record,” Nick said as he turned to draw the curtains. The room sank into soft, blue light. “Something with jangly guitars. I don’t want to think about poetry.”

Robin smiled. “As if you could help but think of anything else,” he said. “Especially when I have you like this.” Robin eased Nick onto the bed and kissed him thoroughly. 

“Music, please, Robin. I need distraction.”

“And here I thought that was exactly what I provided.”

“Music, my love, and then you may have your way with me.” He was beginning to smile in earnest. 

Robin kissed the tip of his nose and rose to obey. Nick shimmied out of his jeans and tunic and tossed them carelessly aside, eager despite the weight of the day for Robin’s hands and lips and every other part belonging to a man. 

“Haste, Robin. I am thinking in couplets.” 

“Please tell me it is anything but Romeo and Juliet.”

Nick just grinned at him. Robin rolled his eyes and chose an old blues album. 

“Am I to be your Juliet, then?” he asked, shedding his own clothes. “Star-crossed and taken away?”

“Never. You are my Robin. None else, not even he who shared your name. Just mine.” Nick lay back on his pillows and drew his legs up and apart to accommodate Robin between them. It took some persuasion, but at last Nicholas let go of fear, anger, grief, if only for an hour or two. No other lover knew him like Robin did. Perhaps it was the power of centuries, or perhaps in the end they were the complement to the other, halves of a whole. 

“You love her then?” Nick asked later, as Robin lay half asleep in his arms.

“I do,” he said, and he sounded surprised. 

“What will you do?”

“What we’ve always done, I suppose.”

“Wait and watch?”

“Wait and watch.” Robin sighed. “I want to tell her. I think she would take it well.”

“Will she love me, do you think?” Nicholas closed his eyes, unwilling to meet Robin’s searching gaze. 

Robin sat up against the wall and pulled Nick up beside him. He kissed Nick languidly, and then with urgency, and the matter was dropped for another half an hour. But Nick returned to the question when he had Robin pinned beneath him. 

“Answer me, please.” This time, he let Robin see every question in his eyes. 

“No,” Robin said after a long moment’s thought, “but I think she likes you very much. I think she would fight for you, if it comes to that.” He tried to capture Nick’s mouth again, eager to continue their sport, but Nick sat back. Robin grimaced with frustration.

“Nicholas,” he said, his voice bordering on a whine, “come back to me at once.”

“I like Molly very much,” Nick said. He wiggled his hips ever so slightly, and Robin groaned.

“I shall tell her at my earliest convenience.” He reached for Nicholas, who consented to be caught, and flipped him on his back. Robin pressed him into the mattress.

“That will cost you, my lad.” His grin was wicked, and Nick found he very much enjoyed paying the debt. 

They stayed in bed throughout the evening and missed their morning classes. They strove to forget the world in which they were moored and remember long-practiced arts and perennial desires. When Robin at last left in search of coffee and Molly, Nick felt full and warm, and he slept like the dead. 

He would do what he must. He did love Thomas, and Janet. He was grateful for the time she gave him and cherished her. But Nicholas Tooley had one heart to give, and it had been given and received long ago.


End file.
